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Amid Portland's surging gang violence, Healing Hurt People works to prevent further victims

Healing Hurt People at Emanuel Hospital.JPG

Joshua Lathan is the face of Healing Hurt People, a program by Legacy Emanuel Medical Center and Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare that will offer wrap-around services to young men of color who have experienced violent gunshot or stabbing wounds. When the men arrive at the emergency department, a chaplain calls Lathan, who meets the victim there immediately. photo by Casey Parks/The Oregonian
(Casey Parks/The Oregonian)

Research shows most victims of gang violence consider turning around their lives in the hours just after an attack. By the time they leave the hospital and meet up with friends, though, most have decided to seek revenge instead.

Lathan tries to interrupt the cycle of retaliation. The 36-year-old meets victims in their hospital rooms, at the time when they are most hurt but also most hopeful. Then, working with a program called Healing Hurt People, he mentors the men for a year.

"My nerves have been on edge," said Lathan, who's constantly checking his phone and listening for sirens. "I'm ready and willing to help my young guys, but I'd rather see no one get hurt. Or die."

Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare and Legacy Emanuel Medical Center created the program in June 2013. As a Level One Trauma Center, Emanuel sees a large number of gunshot and stabbing victims. In 2012, doctors there treated 25 men of color for a gunshot or stab wound. Nationwide, 44 percent of those injured land in the hospital again in five years. Emanuel staff wanted to reduce the rate of repeat visits.

"The loss of the talent you see when you're doing this work is horrifying," said Dr. Lori Morgan, the hospital's chief administrative officer. "If this is the way to prevent one more loss, it's what we should be doing."

Twenty-two programs like Healing Hurt People exist across the country, but none were in the Pacific Northwest. For capacity sake, Portland's organizers limited eligibility for the program to boys and men of color between the ages of 10 and 25.

Lathan's first call came in his second night on the job.

View full sizeLametrius Davis (standing) spent the past year in the Healing Hurt People program. The mentorship provided helped him to focus. Part of that included starting his first athletic training camp. CASEY PARKS/THE OREGONIAN

Lametrius Davis, a 25-year-old who once played football for the University of Hawaii, was walking through downtown Portland one June 2013 night when someone took him for an enemy. The suspect, who was never caught, shot Davis in the stomach.

He was still woozy two days later when he opened his eyes to find Lathan standing over his bed.

"I've had a crazy upbringing. I've been hurt all my life," Davis said. "In all the times I have been hurt, I have never had the kind of support like this."

Davis was the first of 29 young men of color to show up in the Emanuel ER with gunshot or stab wounds. Of those, 24 were African-American, four were Latino and one was Asian. More than three-fourths showed up with gunshot wounds. Another 17 percent had been stabbed, and 7 percent had been assaulted.

Lathan helped the young men find housing, counseling, a job or services that will keep them from continuing the cycle of violence.

But the most important thing Lathan has done, he says, is to just hang out.

"We talked more about each other than the business," Davis said. "It's a relationship I cherish. He's always texting me to ask how I'm doing."

Lathan focused on being a friend to the young men, taking them to lunch or to Ground Control to play video games. Lathan makes beats for hip-hop songs and shared his music with those victims of violence who were aspiring musicians.

"To me, the most important issue was building trust and a strong relationship so that the victim felt comfortable enough to confide in me whenever he felt the need to talk," Lathan said.

As of early June, at the end of Lathan's first year, none of the young men he'd seen went back to the hospital. Two were re-arrested but for non-violent crimes. No one was re-injured, and no one retaliated.

Those were promising stats, Lathan and other organizers said at the time. But last summer was a light one. Whole weeks stretched by without a victim.

This summer is off to a bad start. By early June, officers had responded to 52 gang-related violent crimes in 2014, up from 35 at the same time last year. And days after Lathan and Emanuel celebrated the year anniversary of the program, he received two new referrals. A week later, a gunman shot and killed a 25-year-old man in New Columbia, just blocks away from Lathan's home.

His phone rang off the hook with referrals late the night of July 4th.

Last Friday, Lathan joined 90 others in New Columbia's McCoy Park to call for an end to the violence. An orchestra from Rosa Parks Elementary played "We Shall Overcome." Lathan checked his phone over and over again, hoping the afternoon was a safe one.